Extreme Hunger Pains

Hello, everyone! I'm in the 3rd week of my new life and I'm losing about 2 pounds per week. I eat a balance of protein, fat, and carbs and I shoot for about 1500 calories per day but I usually go over a bit. I eat 6 times per day. Also, I workout for 30 minutes on my elliptical every day. I'm 36, male, and 286 lbs.

Now for my issue, right before bed I get extreme hunger pains in my midsection. It feels like my stomach is rolling around in there. The pain makes me sweat and it keeps me from sleeping so I have to get up and eat something. After eating, the pain subsides.

My questions are...does the pain go away the longer I'm on my diet? I'm ok with pain as long as there's a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. If I have to eat...What kind of foods are best to eat right before bedtime?

Thanks in advance for any help.

doctorgrim

Have you plugged your stats into this calculator? http://www.phord.com/cc/  I really love this for the simplicity factor, its straight forward about what you need to eat and what you need to burn to safely lose weight. 

Just taking a guess from what you're saying I'd say your hungry because your undereating.  Not knowing your height I can't say that specifically but for the average male height of 5'8" and your stats its saying that you need to be eating around 2200 for light activity.  So yeah I'd say your hungry cause well you are :)  As weird as it may sound you need to eat to lose.

Having said that, I am a woman but I found it helpful to shift the majority of my calories to the morning because thats when I was more active, my coworker though shifted hers to the evening and was going through what you had before but when she did that she stopped having the hunger pains (and even waking in the middle of the night hungry.)  You might want to try that :)

As fey said, you are eating too little. 1500 is the bare minimum for a smaller sedentary male - you don't qualify.

I'm 6'2" tall and large. The phord website says I need about 2300 calories a day. I'm going to make sure I get quality calories and spread it out over the whole day and see what happens.

I'm not the patient type so I think I got too aggressive with my calorie intake. Thanks for the tips!

Oh I hear you! I've had times when I've just wanted it done like yesterday and under ate myself.  It happens :)

Good luck! And congrats on the work you've done so far!

Hi,

You may want to make a trip to your doc to rule out any stomach ulcers.  They can cause severe pain (can mimic hunger pain) that is relieved by eating.  Just seems to be a very severe pain if it's making you actually sweat.  Better to be safe and get it checked out. 

I did have a problem years ago that turned out to be weak spot in my stomach (not quite an ulcer). If the diet change doesn't help I will have a doctor look at me again.

Original Post by doctorgrim:

I did have a problem years ago that turned out to be weak spot in my stomach (not quite an ulcer). If the diet change doesn't help I will have a doctor look at me again.

I get that burning feeling too. For me, soya milk helps. It coats the tummy and provides immediate relief, and it's NOT a pill. :)

Good plan to up your calories  and  if eating at night helps.. why not save some calories for a bed time snack.. nothing huge but if a piece of fruit or  celery and cheese can do it for you I wouldn't think there is any harm in that.. (as long as the pain is not being caused by a medical problem) I sometimes get rumbly tummy at night too but not usually as painful to keep me awake.. I would check out at Doc's to make sure.. pain until you sweat should not be ignored.

I decided to up my calories to 1800 per day to see if that would do the trick. It's amazing what a difference 300 more calories made. So far so good, hunger pains are very minimal and infrequent now. Thanks to everyone for your help! :)